


We Hang Side By Side

by reserve



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Feelings, General Hux You Are In Trouble, M/M, Misuse of the Force, Rimming, Sex Magic, Sex Magic Functions A Lot Like Sex Pollen Here, Space Adventures!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:06:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5839195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reserve/pseuds/reserve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Kylo Ren can complete his training, he must retrieve a Sith artifact from the Bothan System. Hux goes along with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Hang Side By Side

**Author's Note:**

> A world of gratitude to so many, but most specifically to [fluorescentgrey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey), [robokittens](http://archiveofourown.org/users/robokittens), and [chickadddddd](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chickadddddd). 
> 
> Title from Lorde's "Swingin' Party," - _If being wrong's a crime, I'm serving forever / If being strong is what you want, then I need help here with this feather / If being afraid is a crime, we hang side by side._
> 
> More explicit warnings in the bottom note if the tags don't cut it for you.

They stood shoulder to shoulder in the Finalizer’s holochamber and Lord Snoke appeared before them, a barely human creature on a massive throne. Kylo Ren was still healing after Starkiller base, and when the bowcaster wound in his side ached, he gritted his teeth behind his mask, grateful the Supreme Leader could neither see his scarred face, nor know his pain. Even he was not that powerful, this Ren knew.

“Supreme Leader,” said General Hux in his overwrought way, all lilting syllables. “Send us your coordinates and we will be in your glorious presence as fast as distance permits.”

Ren held himself as still as possible. He felt itchy and restless, like a faulty bomb, but he concentrated on keeping his head high, his muscles taut. He would not appear weak, not next to Hux and his simpering performance. They had failed. There was no recourse Ren could see that would be painless or swift.

Lord Snoke regarded them both, his face an impassive mask, he seemed to wilt and then regain his strength before he spoke.

“There has been a change of plans,” he said.

Hux visibly faltered before he found his composure as swiftly as it had left him. Ren stifled the urge to touch his mind and feel his fear.

“What is it you wish, my Lord?” Ren asked. His modulated voice was a calm sea, emotionless.

After a pause, Snoke said, “There is a Sith temple, on Krant. In the Bothan system. You will go, Kylo Ren, and you will retrieve the holochron buried in its ruins.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.” Ren inclined his head. Surely there was more, an additional jab, the twist of the knife.

Hux looked like he was on the verge of offering some uninformed, but no doubt impassioned, opinion.

“And you shall accompany him,” Snoke added, shifting his gaze to Hux. His eyes had a funny sort of keenness, as though he were telling a indulgent joke.

Hux had his mouth open before Ren could protest himself. He did not require a keeper.

“But Supreme Leader, wouldn’t I serve you better here? Aboard the Finalizer, at my post? There is much to be done, I don’t see how I could possibly—”

“ _Silence_ ,” Snoke admonished. “You will go to the Bothan system and together you will complete this task. There is no room for negotiation.”

Not for the first time, Ren wondered what Hux’s childhood had been like, for they were so often scolded together like unruly children. He knew Hux blamed him alone for it, _resented_ him for it. He knew, and yet Hux contributed just as much as he did to their squabbling. Ren’s wound twinged anew.

“Yes, my lord,” Hux said, eyes downcast.

“We are grateful for this opportunity to serve you,” Ren added, attempting to save face, as though it mattered.

“Only when you have the holochron in your possession will you able to complete your training, Lord Ren. And General, do not fail me this time; I will not be so lenient, and the hour of consequence is upon us.”

Hux had yet to lift his chin; he swallowed audibly. “You are truly merciful, my lord.”

Ren felt his fear then without seeking it, a sickly thing, curled up and trembling. He looked down as well, attempting deference as best he could; maybe it was sympathy. He had been told his whole life that he was indispensable, special. He imagined Hux had not. When he looked up, Snoke’s hologram had vanished, and Hux was staring at him, arms crossed over his chest, expression mullish. He had clearly recovered his arrogance.

“I didn’t know _your kind_ had temples,” he said.

Ren tilted his head. “I’m not a Sith. Pack your things, we leave at 0600.”

“I will assemble a crew,” Hux said.

“No, only a ship. This mission is ours alone.”

“The Supreme Leader did not specify—”

“Trust me,” Ren said, injecting as much will into his speech as he could without being overly obvious.

Hux rolled his eyes. “Fine. No need for your _theatrics_.” Then he turned, and with a sweep of greatcoat, he was gone. They were always walking away from one another in a flourish.

Ren longed to remove his helmet and press a hand to his brow.

\--

In the aftermath of Starkiller Base, The Finalizer had gathered what survivors there were, and retreated to the Outer Rim with a trail of planetary dust in its wake like a tail between its legs.

Hux had retrieved him from the snow, brought him aboard a shuttle with strength Ren hadn’t known he possessed, and ferried him to medbay. Ren’s memories of that endless trial were fractured, marred by grief he couldn't touch, and shot through with shame like so much mossed bark, but he could remember Hux’s face as he’d leaned over him in the snow. He’d looked wilder then Ren had ever seen him; he’d shucked off his coat somewhere, and his cheeks were red. Ren could have sworn he was crying and he’d been broadcasting terror and heartache with such intensity that it left Ren feeling wounded anew.

Nearly a standard month later, and they had yet to speak of it. And now they were being sent off on some fool’s errand. _No, not some fool’s errand_ , Ren mentally chastised himself, an important mission on behalf of their Supreme Leader. Success would likely be meaningless, but failure would be dire. He urged himself to remember that.

They left at 0600 as planned. The hangar bay was mostly empty when their shuttle took off laden with supplies enough to last a standard imperial year in transit if something should go horribly wrong. Once they were settled, Ren removed his helmet and Hux gave him an appraising look from the copilot’s seat.

“You really shouldn’t wear that thing at all,” he said.

“Can you fly?” Ren asked. Taking the offered bait would be the weaker path. His neck muscles strained from the effort of remaining unruffled.

“Of course I can fly, I am an officer in this fleet.”

Ren whistled at him, a mocking thing, and Hux looked immediately offended.

“Hopefully I won’t need you,” Ren said, then he put the ship into hyperspace. He was a very good pilot. Next to him, Hux sulked.

It would be one day’s time before they reached their destination. Ren sincerely hoped Hux wouldn't taunt him into fisticuffs before then. They were alone in the void now, and there was nothing to hold him back aside from his own sense of moral rectitude. Which was lacking at times.

\--

Things between them were placid for the better part of eight hours, and then Hux looked up from inspecting his cuticles for the umpteenth time and suggested holochess.

Which was how the holochess console ended up cut in two.

“ _Why_ ,” Ren seethed, “are you so good at this?”

“Haven’t you heard?” said Hux placidly. He’d barely flinched when Ren destroyed their game. “I’m a strategic genius.” He stood and brushed invisible fallout from his trousers; it was infuriating.

Ren glared at him.

“Get out of my sight,” he said.

“Of course, my lord.” Hux smirked, and stepped around the smoking metal like he hadn’t a care in the galaxy. _Prat_.

\--

Twelve tense hours later, the navigation system beeped quietly as they entered the Bothan system, and Ren dropped their shuttle out of hyperspace.

The stars regained their shape as the small spacecraft slowed, and then their destination came into view. Through the shuttle’s transparisteel viewport, Krant looked green and blue with a layer of voluminous clouds. Ren could picture the lush forests and snow topped peaks.

Beside him, Hux was dozing. Ren hadn’t expected him to nap after the chess incident, but he wasn't sure what he _had_ expected; certainly not for Hux to let his guard down enough for sleep no matter how light. He started to prepare the ship to reenter the atmosphere, and didn’t bother waking Hux to assist. The Decimator’s controls were maddeningly familiar anyway—a contorted mirror of the ship he’d cut his teeth on as a tiny pilot in a big, warm lap—and he didn’t require a copilot.

After switching over to manual control, Ren ran a brief infrared scan of the planet’s surface. Nothing on the console computer indicated that there was a population worth worrying about waiting for them, at least not at their chosen coordinates. He put up the deflector shields as a precaution anyway, but even reaching out with the Force didn't show signs of anything alarming in the vicinity of their intended landing spot. Hux stirred when he adjusted the Decimator’s thrusters with the intention of bringing her fully into the atmosphere, and for a brief moment before they broke through, the whole viewport was cloaked in hot red.

 _Fly casual_ , he thought, unwelcome and unbidden, as he neared the planet’s surface. He would come as close to their destination as he could, but even a ship as well-armoured as the Decimator would be better off with a cleared swath of land. Hux moved again, this time stretching one arm above his head like a felinx waking, he sleepily opened and closed his mouth a few times. Ren could hear his tongue rub against the roof his mouth as his jaw moved. Hux was curled up awkwardly in the other seat, and his hair was mussed, sticking up in an awkward pleat at the back of his head. Ren resisted the urge to shake him awake just to watch him fluster.

Hux was an annoyance, a piece of red tape, and so often, a list of proper procedures standing between Ren and his personal directive of the moment. He would likely be no different on this mission which Ren could have bested alone ten times over. And while Ren was more than willing to ignore direct orders from just about anyone in his way, General Hux’s presence on this particular journey was at the insistence of their Supreme Leader, which was where Ren’s admittedly willful disobedience generally stopped short. He was honorbound, he had taken an oath. There was binding magic there, and he felt its yoke each time he did not heed Snoke’s orders to the letter, however few those times had been.

It was very rarely worth the pain.

\--

Krant had a thirty-six hour day, and when the Decimator landed in a sunny clearing, there were at least five hours of daylight left.

“Plenty of time to start moving,” Ren said, gathering supplies.

Hux was watching him warily, still folded up in the copilot’s seat. He had a fuzziness about him, like he’d slept too long or maybe not enough and couldn’t completely place how he’d gotten where he was.

“As you say,” Hux mumbled, after Ren stared at him long enough.

“So you should get ready.”

“Right.” Hux smoothed a hand over the back of his head. Ren caught the barest hint of a scowl when Hux came into contact with the mess his hair had become.

“No time to bathe,” he said brusquely, wrapping his cloak about his shoulders. The planet would be temperate, but not warm.

“Of course _you_ wouldn’t care about bathing,” Hux said, standing. He had certainly managed to pack his sneer before they left the Finalizer. He checked his sidearm, and adjusted his belt.

Ren slung the satchel with water and rations enough for two over his shoulders. He had the hold open and was out of the ship before Hux had managed to leave the cockpit. He followed shortly after Ren, grumbling about something, but when his pristine boots hit the forest floor he stopped and turned around in place. He was radiating wonder as he took in the tall pines and the high, white clouds. This, the man who had destroyed whole planets with a simple order, basked momentarily in the glory of nature. Then he sniffed the air, and his face shuttered. Ren tried to poke at his mind, and Hux just glared.

“Enough of that,” he said. “Do you have a map?”

“I have the Force.”

“Imagine my surprise.” Hux pulled a map from his own satchel. “The temple should be no more than a few hours on foot but we won’t make it by nightfall. We’ll have to bed down half-way there.”

“Lead the way,” Ren said, feeling indulgent.

They walked single-file over mountain streams, and mossed rocks. Through piles of leaves, and over fallen, decomposing tree trunks. The forest had a deep, familiar musk, life and death in equal measure. The Force felt at balance here, and he was cutting an ugly swath through it in the name of the First Order. They stopped in a clearing and Ren pulled out two ration bars from his bag and offered one to Hux who attempted to eat gracefully and then gave in and completely devoured the foul thing like he’d been born starving.

Hux was chasing crumbs at the corners of his mouth when Ren heard it: a far-off growl, bubbled up somewhere from nightmares. And then another. He powered on his lightsaber.

“Blaster,” he said under his breath.

“What was that, Lord Ren?” Hux replied at full volume, completely unaware of literally everything around him.

It was stunningly too late. The first panthac leapt directly at Ren and was cut neatly in two. The second, less foolishly, went for Hux. Hux pulled his blaster from his holster but in a moment of uncharacteristic panic, Ren threw both panthac and Hux away from each other with the Force. The panthac hit a tree and was knocked unconscious and Hux hit the ground and looked murderous. He raised his weapon and fired directly at Ren.

A panthac fell dead to the ground behind him. Hux groaned.

Ren turned and kicked the unconscious panthac. “Toss me your blaster.”

“I think not,” said Hux, and shot at it from where he sat.

Somehow Ren’s satchel had been destroyed in the very brief scrum, and its contents were strewn across the clearing. He took to gathering their things, while Hux managed to get back on his feet.

“This suits you,” Hux said, looking disgusted with himself for saying anything to Ren that could be construed as a compliment. “The forest setting.”

Somewhere in the distance, a bird or something like it gave a long, shrill call, waning into high, staccato bursts. What was left of the day’s sun dappled the pine-laden ground around their boots, and when Ren looked up at Hux, his face was set in a troubled pinch, but his red hair had caught the light and looked like a firebrand, glowing and sanctified.

Ren quirked an eyebrow at him and shrugged. He continued bundling up their resources in his shucked cloak. He had assumed it would come in handy for something other than looking forbidding some day, he just hadn’t considered this particular scenario. He hadn’t dreamed of this, and his Force dreams had been strong for as long as he could remember.

“Do you do this a lot? Crouch around in the dirt like a common scavenger?”

Even as he said it, Hux radiated a kind of disbelief, disbelief that he had opportunity to speak such words at all, Ren could feel it, and took a tiny bit of pleasure in how supremely uncomfortable Hux was. He would remain quiet just a little longer. It was bad enough that his face was uncovered. This would have been far more fun hidden behind his helmet.

“What did you even have in there? What is all of that? Do you even know how to do basic healing?” He peered down at Ren, hands on his hips, lip upturned. “It’s going to get dark soon, and once it’s dark we’re going to want to have somewhere to stay. We can’t stay here, here won’t do.”

“Hux,” said Ren. “Shut up.”

Hux tugged at his gloves and shut up. He was cloaked in an undulating wave of loathing, it was almost intoxicating. They walked for another hour, and when they did stop, they rolled out their sleeping pads and Ren set up a protective Force bubble around them while Hux looked on disinterested.

It would be over very soon, Ren told himself. They were closer now than they had been, and only progress mattered.

\--

The Sith Temple on Krant was very old, and very much in ruins. Ren felt it before they came upon it: a dark center, pulling the energy from the forest into its depths like a ravenous mouth. There was no comfort in the Dark Side, he knew this, but when they broke through the trees and all of that black stone rose up from the earth before them, Ren was surprised at how stretched thin he felt; like it could sense his own power and was leaching it, trying to take it away for some nebulous purpose.

They passed under a row of grandly crumbling arches, and stopped in front of the obelisk at the center of the structure. Ren felt like his skin was attempting to crawl away from his body the closer they got to the interior, and Hux was humming some old Imperial drinking song. Hux must have been about as Force sensitive as a blast door.

“Don’t touch anything,” Ren said, as they entered the main catacomb. He powered on his lightsaber. The walls were lined in glittering symbols, words in the Sith language he could not read. Buttresses overhead connected ornate pillars, and at each pillar’s base there stood a statue of a Sith lord of old. The dark energy was most potent in this place, smothering in its intensity. Ren cast about for the holochron they sought. It would be small, pyramidal in shape.

He tried to reach out with the Force but his range felt dampened by so much power. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. A tiny flare of light caught his eye, and when he turned, Hux was standing over a small pedestal.

“Is this it?” he called. He reached for it.

“I said, don’t touch anything!”

Hux made a derisive sound. “As if I would _want_ touch any of this garbage?” Then he put out his hand, and was consumed in red light.

Ren screamed.

\--

Hux was a ragdoll in his arms, a deadweight composed entirely of elbows and fabric. Ren could have used the Force to hold him aloft and return him to the ship, but after watching Hux fall stiff and stricken to the ground, his eyes vacant and then closed, there was unsettling comfort in having him this close. Ren could feel his steady if slow heartbeat, feel the gentle rise of his chest, and hear the breath pass through his parted lips. Hux’s head lolled to the side, and his arm flopped out before them, limp and uncontrolled. In this state, his face looked smooth and very young. Which, Ren supposed he was. They both were. However hard Hux worked to seem older than his 30 odd years, Ren could always sense niggling anxiety beneath the zealous confidence in himself and in their cause. Someone, long ago, must have called him an imposter, and it had stayed with him like a incurable rash, marring the flesh under his cool exterior.

When Ren cleared the trees to find the Decimater untouched and sound, an unexpected wave of relief crashed over the rocks of him. He felt like craggy coastline, eroded from his march through the woods with a person as cargo.

The hatch hissed down to the forest floor, and he took the ramp in three long strides. He was still unsure what had befallen Hux, and he had yet to actually check vitals, but—they had retrieved the holochron, and Ren couldn’t help but feel satisfied at a task completed, even with Hux’s life potentially in the balance. He should never have come along in the first place, Ren thought with a tiny flare of anger. He shook his head as he laid Hux out on the bottom cot at the Decimator’s rear, and considered stripping him of his uniform to allow him comfort in sleep. A good rest would do Hux well, even if his reaction upon waking was a horrified one. Ren harbored no illusions: Hux would be truly repulsed knowing that he had laid his filthy sorcerer's hands all over his uniform and bared skin, removing his now scuffed boots.

Once he began to work, Ren found there was an illicit thrill in taking such liberties however innocent their intent. But that was the great irony of being Force sensitive: very few beings acted with innocent intent, no matter how they lied to themselves. Ren knew better than to trust his own intentions, just as he knew something deeper lay beneath Hux’s surface dislike of him. It was as performative as his little speeches. Under piles of disgust, Hux needed him, and that knowledge sat heavy in Ren’s mind like an albatross as he divested Hux of his persona in layers. First the boots, unzipped to reveal skinny, pale calves clad in black socks to the knee. Next, the belt, clicked open and discarded in a coil on the floor. He took apart the button at Hux’s neck with careful fingers. It was so tight against his skin that a tiny, pinkish indent had been pressed into his adam’s apple. Ren resisted the sudden, consuming urge to touch it, to run his nail over it. He shook himself, then he pulled down the hidden zipper at the front of Hux’s uniform, each inch revealing more skin and a slender but toned chest. Slight abs and a soft looking stomach, barely concave at the place where his trousers sat low on his torso.

Ren used the Force to lift Hux up gently from the cot, and used his hands to push his uniform from his shoulders and then completely off. He had a scar on his left arm, just below his shoulder, like a burn mark. Ren pulled off his gloves, but hesitated before he slid open the clasps at the top of Hux’s trousers. He frowned at his unsurity, his brow wrinkling up. This _was_ the practical choice, and he was working at being practical. At being less ruled by his emotions and more in touch with a calmer sort of rage. He focused, cleared his mind of doubt, and tugged Hux’s regulation trousers down over slim, almost girlish hips.

He had not unclothed another person in a very long time, in what felt like the whole of his new life, since leaving home for good. It was troubling, how much he liked it. Under all of that black fabric were Hux’s legs, very long and stronger looking than Ren had expected. And at the top of those legs, was a pair of grey skivvies, the band cutting into the tender seeming belly flesh where red lines were visible from the shifting press of tight fabric. Ren’s fingers had skimmed over that stomach during his ministrations, and it was very soft, its softness augmented by a dusting of red hair that disappeared beneath grey fabric. For a moment, Ren considered pressing his palm over that hair and letting his fingers dig into vulnerable skin, just because he could, because he had some long-forgotten desire to be tactile with others when it couldn’t hurt him in return. He settled for pulling the wool blanket folded at the end of the berth up over Hux’s prone form, and let his knuckles drag just so over his body. Just enough, to satisfy a need he couldn’t place.

He stood before he could touch any more; then he reached out with the Force unthinkingly.

And Hux wasn’t there.

Ren startled and stared down at the body before him. The breathing was normal, the heartbeat was steadier and sure. He pulled the mediscanner out of the ship’s medkit and ran it over Hux’s body from head to feet. There were no tell-tale beeps indicating illness, no brainwave disturbances to be found. According to the scanner, Hux was perfectly healthy, which meant he was unconscious for reasons beyond Ren’s immediate knowledge and that, that _scared_ him. He reached out with the Force again, this time with focused purpose, and found the place where Hux’s mind should have been. Ren dropped to his knees and put two fingers to Hux’s temple, tucking his thumb beneath his chin. He was usually so loud, so openly dripping with contempt, that Ren had never needed to touch him to hear his thoughts.

He closed his eyes and sought out the feel of Hux’s mind, he imagined the power of the Force like tendrils from his fingertips, seeking. He bit his lip in concentration, and then he felt it: a kind of static, like a broken console monitor. Static blocking his way, shielding Hux’s mind from him, a barrier meant to keep Force-users at bay. It was so discomfiting that Ren dropped his hand and sat back on his heels. Then he tried again, and again, and then once more to reach Hux, before he was exhausted from the effort and his own head felt sore, his eyesight blurry. He took to pacing the ship until his legs felt likely to cramp up, and Hux still hadn’t woken.

Ren realized his fists were clenched at his sides.

He pulled the flimsy mattress and pillow off the cot above Hux’s head and laid them on the ground beside the bottom bunk, then he willed himself into a restless sleep.

\--

A mewling little cry. The sound of someone shivering: the hurried breaths trapped behind chattering teeth. A choked back sob.

Ren woke to unfamiliar surroundings, a sore back, and General Armitage Hux sweat-drenched and shivering beneath the flimsy blanket Ren had covered him with. Ren felt exhausted from poor sleep and his attempts to pass the moat surrounding Hux’s consciousness; and that moat had yet to run dry, Ren noted, tiredly attempting to poke at Hux’s mind. Hux, who was turning fitfully now, practically thrashing about. It was fascinating to watch, and for a moment that stretched long and thin like taffy strings, Ren found himself transfixed by the flushed body on display before him. Without the usual barrage of hatred being directed his way, Ren could almost forget he knew this person at all.

Hux threw an arm behind his head, his back arching off the cot in a long bridge of tortured flesh. His hip bones pulled against his skin. A perfectly formed bead of sweat slid down his throat to rest in the dip below his Adam’s apple.

Ren dragged his teeth over his lower lip and felt bewildered by his own body. He did not know lust. He hid himself from it, just as he hid himself from the Light. He was a shadow, a cold knife in the dark, passionate only when passion was violent. He had felt it, maybe, when he'd had the scavenger girl briefly at his mercy, but even that, even that was not the same. There was no place inside him that made a fit chamber for what besieged him now: a crawling ache that began somewhere below his belly and rose into his chest like a blood red sun. And even as he burned, Ren sat frozen in place.

Then Hux said his name in a way that made his breath catch.

“Ren,” he whimpered, “Ren, please.” His arm flopped off the cot and brushed against Ren’s chest; his fingers were freezing even through the thick fabric Ren wore beneath his robes.

“Hux?” he whispered. He hadn’t considered that Hux’s body might be in shock. He’d been so caught up in _watching_ him appear to suffer that he’d forgotten that it was real. That Hux could actually be suffering. Hux grabbed at him weakly with fingers so pale the fine blue veins beneath his skin were visible. He pulled, and Ren went to him, shuffling forward on his knees.

Hux had rolled fully onto his back, his legs fallen akimbo, and he looked up at Ren with his impossibly light eyes. So much about him was nearly translucent, like the only thing that gave him form at all was his uniform, and without it he was likely to wisp away. He wet his lips, and Ren couldn’t make himself look away from the pink tip of tongue. Hux blinked, unseeing, and then he squeezed his eyes shut so tightly it looked painful.

“Ren,” he said again. “I think I’m dying.”

“You’re not,” Ren said immediately. “Something happened to you, in the temple. I should have stopped you, I should have done something. I didn’t see until it was too late, I didn’t—” he was blabbering helplessly.

“I am. I’m dying,” Hux said, and Ren realized he hadn’t heard him at all. “I’m so _cold_.” As though he meant to emphasize his point, Hux’s whole body was taken with a wracking shudder.

Ren was tearing at his clothing before he could stop and question his motives. He knew, he had heard, it was known, that if someone was suffering from hypothermia, if someone was freezing, that body heat helped. He had a body, such as it was, he could provide that. He could not soothe whatever this ailment was away with his mind, but he could help. And the part of him that knew how to help, wanted to.

“Here,” Ren said, quiet, gentle. “Here, let me just.” And as he climbed onto the cot next to Hux, and pulled his clammy body close, he had the sense that he was making a grave mistake, and yet would do nothing to correct it. And as he wrapped long arms and longer legs around Hux’s shaking form, and whispered to him in a voice he barely remembered, he knew that he had somehow failed again.

\---

Ren awoke to find Hux staring at him, practically on top of him, and still mostly nude. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused.

“Is there alcohol on this ship?” he asked, his voice had a raspy, manic edge.

Ren scrambled backward and away from the cage of Hux’s arms and legs until his body hit the bulkhead behind him. He instinctively reached for Hux’s mind only to find the same static, a locked door meant to keep him out. Hux was still on all fours, looking at Ren from beneath damp, unkempt bangs and he was breathing hard.

Ren pushed his hair back from his face. “There's not.”

Hux dropped his head, one shoulder lifting. Ren could see his shoulder blades move with each breath he took.

“This is an _officer’s_ transport,” Hux said to the mattress. “There should be alcohol on a ship of this quality. There should be something—” he looked up sharply and his eyes met Ren’s. Then, as though he were seeing him for the first time, Hux ran his tongue over his lower lip like he intended to eat him. “Without the proper trappings of civilization, we’re just savages. But you'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Lord Ren? _Savagery_.”

Ren might not have been able to reach Hux mentally, but he could feel the shift in the air, in the Force. A current of malicious intent flowed through Hux, and it was not his. It didn't have the same petty flavor that Hux’s hate for him had. The words were his, but Hux was only a conduit for a more chaotic evil, an evil that intended to hurt them both, although Ren couldn’t be sure how. But he could almost see it: a red web of fine strands binding Hux, tightening imperceptibly with each passing moment. It was old and very dark, Force usage beyond him; the kind of Sith lore no child born in the new age of the Jedi took seriously, no matter how far that child may have fallen. But it was here, now, in their ship. Ren stood and put the breadth of the room between them.

“Hux,” he said, placating. “You're not well.”

“The only thing not well on this ship is the lack of alcohol.”

“Now isn't the best time to drink.” Ren cursed himself. He had completely forgotten out to be persuasive without psychic manipulation. He wondered if Snoke had known what they might stumble on. If he had sent them here to break them down, to make them tear each other apart.

“Then I need you.” Hux paused in a grimace. “I need you.” His eyelashes fluttered. He looked like he was struggling against himself, his fingers were clenching the mattress, he was holding his breath.

“You what?” Ren prompted.

Hux gasped. “I need you to hit me. Knock me out.”

Ren stared at him. It was tempting. He'd spent long hours thinking about knocking Hux around with the Force, and he’d seriously considered wiping the smirk off his face with his fist on more than one occasion.

“Do it,” Hux hissed. He stood in one sinuous motion, he had so many pointed parts. He looked treacherous.

“Why?”

Hux rolled his eyes, and the gesture was so completely him that Ren felt momentarily relieved.

“I can't hold it off,” he said, through gritted teeth. “I’m not strong enough. I need you—”

Without thinking Ren raised a hand, and with it went Hux, lifted into the air by the Force. His slender ankles dangled a few inches above the ground. Ren let himself feel powerful. Hux gripped at his throat; his body was no empty host. Whatever had him in its thrall had neither stripped him of his will to live, nor his winning personality. Ren stopped. Hux dropped to the ground in a sputtering half-naked heap. He coughed against his fist, and Ren stared first at his wet mouth, and then at the red impressions that stood out against his milky throat. Then he noticed the prominent erection in Hux’s shorts. Hux was still gasping when the cause of his distress hit Ren full in the face. It was the cruelest of tricks. The kind of spell that made a man viable under even the most dire of circumstances. A long forgotten part of him remembered teasing laughter, his mother’s kind face, and a story from oh-so-many years ago about a woman—no _, his mother_ —and a pheromone projecting alien who had nearly seduced her away from....Ren shook off the memory. The human body was so easily manipulated, it took so little to send its biology into flux. _You know how to fix this,_ Ren thought. _You know exactly what he needs and you know he will not ask._

Hux stalked towards him and Ren put up his hands. “You're suffering,” he said, his mouth contorted into something ugly. 

Hux did not flinch. “What do you care? You detest me. And I don't need some mystical power to sense that."

“Tell me what ails you.”

“Use the force, you complete nob,” Hux said, coming closer.

Ren sighed. “I can't.”

That brought Hux up short. Ren kept expecting him to cover himself, to try and hide his hardon, but instead he put his hands on his hips, and threw his head back in laughter.

“You _can't_? That's rich. That's grand,” he said between hysterical giggles. "How do you know anything's amiss at all?”

Ren narrowed his eyes.

“It won’t get better. It's not going to suddenly clear up. Slowly, you'll lose your mind. It will unspool around you, and just as you can see now that you do not want me despite your urgent need, you will watch yourself go mad, trapped in your own head, held captive by the will of some long dead Sith. And then, Hux, because you were too stubborn to help yourself, you will die.”

Hux’s lip turned up into a sneer.

“Maybe I’d rather die then allow you to take part in my _affliction.”_

“You know that’s not true,” Ren said, very low. “How long have I stood to your right? How long have I watched you? I have been so close, to right here—” He reached out and touched Hux’s sweat-sheened brow—“for so long. You must wonder what I know of you.”

Ren watched him try to dislodge his hand while leaning in to the touch. Hux’s eyes fell shut. When he spoke, he sounded weary.

“What do you propose, Ren? You'll let me use you? Debase you with this poison?”

 _Yes yes yesyes._ “If I must.”

Hux shook him off and bared his teeth. His hands were clenched at his sides. He lifted his chin the direction of the cockpit.

“Sit,” he said. “Don't touch.”

Ren sat. He put his hands on the seat arms and vowed not to move them.

Hux attempted to compose himself. He smoothed his hands over his chest like he was trying to straighten his uniform, and instead looked undone at his own touch. His skin must have been so sensitive. Now, _now_ would be the time to know his thoughts. Ren felt an anticipatory thrill go up his spine, troubling in its intensity. Hux would be a livewire when Ren touched him, if Ren allowed himself to touch him.

"You can't hear my thoughts?" Hux said, breathless. He positioned himself between Ren’s open knees.

"No. For once."

"Good," he said, then he leaned down and bit Ren’s lower lip hard enough to bleed. “Kiss back, you fool.”

Ren tasted copper between his words.

“Or do you not know how?”

“You said no touching,” Ren muttered, feeling put upon. He could feel his limited patience running dry. What did he care, truly, if Hux went mad from old Sith trickery? His life would be far simpler without Hux creating obstacles at every turn.

“I didn’t mean it,” Hux said wetly against his mouth. His fingers were in Ren’s hair. He smelled like sweat and something harsher, a ship suffering mechanical failures. He dragged his mouth over Ren’s cheekbone. “I never mean half of what I say.”

Ren’s hands found Hux’s lower back without his permission, and they made purchase under his ass without his permission either. Then he was standing, taking Hux with him, and wrapping Hux’s skinny legs about his waist.

Hux made a surprised sound which he leveraged into a groan when Ren turned and set him down on a flat portion of the ship’s controls.

“I’ll remember that,” Ren said, looking down at him, their mouths very close together. “The next time you displease me.”

Hux kissed him, released all of this warm breath into his mouth. His lips felt hot and and well-bitten. Ren remembered kissing, he remembered what he knew of sex. That knowledge hadn’t died with his old self, and it was easy, so _easy_ , to just follow the will of his body for once. Welcome arousal was so novel, and he could move forward when Hux pressed his heels into Ren’s back. He could hold still when Hux shoved upward, bringing their cloth-covered groins into contact. And he could tug Hux’s head to the side and relish in the moan Hux offered up at having his hair pulled. He was not so malformed that pleasure was lost on him. Perhaps he had forgotten until this day. Until he’d watched Hux be overcome and felt himself want part of it.

“I want you,” Hux said. “You said I didn’t, but I do.”

“You don’t mean it.” Ren held out his hand and the medkit came barreling into the cockpit and crashed against the viewport.

“But I do,” Hux smeared against his neck. Behind him, the transparisteel was steaming up. “Don’t worry, I still hate you.”

“Take these off,” Ren said, and tugged at the last piece of clothing between them aside from his own thin leggings. He looked away as Hux scrambled inelegantly out of his underwear, and when he turned back from the medkit with the standard packets of surgical lube in hand, he was arrested by the sight before him. How was it possible that the loss of such minimal fabric could move him so?

Hux’s eyes caught on his hand and he smiled, this wanton shift of lips and teeth, slow and rather feral.

“Do you intend to have me, Lord Ren?” His feet were up on the two command chairs and he tilted his hips up, displaying himself. He had a hand on his cock.

Ren could not look away from the tuft of bright red between his lightly freckled thighs. He shoved his hair back from his face and concentrated on his breath. With one hand, he removed his leggings and stepped from them.

“Do you know how to use that?” Hux teased, eyes on his cock. One of his hands slipped lower.

“I wouldn’t cut my teeth on you,” Ren said. He tore open a packet. “The idea is that you live through this.”

Hux laughed throatily, delighted. He groaned when Ren replaced his bumbling, dry fingers with one of his own, and then very quickly two. Both of Hux’s hands grabbed hold of his hair, and Ren found himself staring into hazy blue eyes. Hux had the most expressive eyebrows.

“Just fuck me,” he said. “Don’t wait. I don’t need—”

For once, Ren took him at his word, finding his way, and easing in with little grace. Hux moaned and ground down onto him, egging him on, asking for more. An insatiable tangle of limbs, and seeking mouth, and grippy long fingers that refused to let up as Ren stroked into him. He bit at Ren’s mouth, clung to him.

“Come inside me,” Hux said, he sounded far away. “Come for me.”

“But you—”

“Do it,” Hux insisted, squeezing Ren’s hips between his thighs.

Ren found he couldn’t resist. He pistoned twice into Hux’s body, jamming them both up against the viewport, and finished with a yell that felt like it had been torn from him, like he’d been keeping it for something.

For a long time, the only sound between them was labored breath and the quiet, constant hum of the Decimator as she sat in stasis. Hux had his face pressed into Ren’s neck, and Ren could somehow feel all of him, from the tight clutch where they were still joined, to the flutter of his lashes against his throat. He rested his forehead against the cool, slick viewport and reached for Hux’s mind.

“It’s not over,” Hux said, just when Ren hit static again. He made a helpless little sound in the back of his throat.

Ren swallowed thickly. “What do you need?”

“ _More_ ,” Hux whispered.

He tilted Hux’s chin up to meet his eyes. Their bodies were sticking together with cooling sweat. Ren could feel his own spunk dripping into the scant space between their thighs. He put a big, protective hand at the back of Hux’s head. His hair was thick, but very fine. Ren had never touched it. In all of his violent fantasies, and in his less violent ones, he’d never imagined the feel of Hux’s hair, just as he’d never considered that the hair between his legs might match the hair upon his head. He as taken with sudden affection for this damp, prickly man. He hadn’t forgotten affection, but he’d lost it somewhere.

“I can give you more,” he said. “Do you want to tidy up?”

Hux shook his head no. He was still clinging to Ren, reluctant to release him and lose him, or maybe lose the feel of him against his insides. He snuffled against Ren’s ear. It was ticklish and not unwelcome. Hux would have to wait for him, but not for long.

“Hang on,” he said, and smiled to himself when Hux’s limbs choked up on him. Ren called on a tiny bit of the Force to settle them, and then he stood, and walked with Hux in his arms to the pair of cots. He slipped free before he could set Hux down on the bottom bed, and felt the warm release of his own fluid. Hux made a disappointed mewling sound when Ren let go of him. He looked less well, like somehow actually seeking the cure had made what ailed him worse.

“Ren,” he said, his voice unsteady. “You can’t stop now.” He had a miserable sort of certainty to him, like a man going to the gallows.

“I never do,” Ren said. He dropped to his knees before Hux and gently turned him on his stomach. Hux went pliantly, and when he realized that Ren intended to clean away his mess with his mouth, he was even more pliant, pushing his knees apart and giving himself up like an offering to a lesser god.

And when enough time had passed that Ren’s jaw was sore, and Hux was silently weeping from the onslaught of his tongue, Ren flopped onto the floor and pulled Hux down to him. Hux’s arms and chest were flushed an angry red, and he looked painfully erect, like his cock was straining at its form for release. His face was wet and he had a delicately spidered broken capillary below his left eye. Ren parted his asscheeks and sat him down onto his resurgent erection without ceremony, shifting his thighs apart to make a comfortable seat, and then fucking up into Hux’s open, exhausted body. Hux’s hands held tight to Ren’s shoulders, and his head dropped down, his mouth fallen open. He rode Ren sloppily to completion a second time, and even with Ren’s firm, sure hand on his cock, he still couldn’t come.

Ren _felt_ for him. It was odd, knowing the powerful rush of orgasm twice over so quickly after so long on his own, while watching someone hold back. Except, Hux wasn’t holding back. He just just wasn’t at all. Ren pulled his leggings back on and fetched them both a sip of water. He rinsed his mouth, and then wiped the insides of Hux’s soft thighs and his ass where he’d acquired a certain amount of roughed-up skin. Each swipe of the damp towel made Hux shiver, and Ren cursed Snoke. Truly hated him for sending them here. For setting this up, however guiltless he probably was. He was unsure what Snoke wanted with the holochron they had retrieved, but Ren wished to destroy it.

“I hate this,” Hux told him weakly, sniffling. He had curled up onto his side, and tugged his uniform jacket over himself. He looked very small.

Ren stroked through his bangs, down the side of his face. He presented his fingers to Hux’s lips without thinking and Hux sucked two into his mouth with his eyes closed, his red lashes fanned out over ruddy cheeks. Ren bent and kissed him around his fingers. He laid down next to Hux, and they traded sleepy, thoughtless kisses for a long time. When Ren concentrated, he could still see the red web surrounding Hux, but it looked dimmer than it had.

Hux touched his face. He ran the pads of his fingers over Ren’s scar and Ren let him. It seemed fair, somehow, to be laid a little bare himself.

“It looks good on you,” Hux mumbled. “Like you were meant to have it.”

“I was,” Ren said. “It was my destiny.”

“Destiny,” Hux scoffed, always the contrarian. Instead of anger, Ren felt another sunflare of affection for him.

“I could not have foreseen this,” he said, taking the hand exploring his face between his two and kissing at Hux’s fingertips. “Not in a thousand lifetimes.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. We are bound in history. Before this, and forever after.” Hux smiled a secret little smile, the one you save for your mirror alone. “You were meant for me. Meant to torment me.”

"You'll remember all of this," Ren said. "That's part of the cruelty."

Hux chose to kiss him. "I'm well aware."

Ren reached below Hux’s jacket and took him in hand. He shimmied down on his stomach, and felt Hux’s hands fit themselves around his skull. It was dark and very hot beneath the wool uniform, and it smelled like their sex. He could never smell it again in all his days, and Ren would remember it. He licked delicately at Hux’s flesh, wrapped his mouth around the thick, sore head of his cock, and tried to put every ounce of will he could summon into bringing an end to things. He took Hux as deeply as he could and swallowed around him, used the rhythmic clenching of fingers in his hair as a barometer for pleasure, and tried to keep a steady pace. He had always relied on a little bit of psychic prying when it came to sex, too. He hadn’t fully realized that, not until it was stripped from him in this way.

Hux moaned, and Ren redoubled his efforts. He flirted with the edge of Hux’s tender hole with one thumb, pushing inside and then swiftly retreating until Hux grabbed his wrist and held him in place with his thumb in to its hilt. Ren tasted the first of Hux’s release on his tongue, and then Hux was thrashing about as he had been before he had fully awoken, and emptying a lifetime’s worth of frustration and pent-up need down Ren’s throat. He hadn’t known if he could; but he swallowed every bit.

\--

Ren awoke to find Hux staring at him, practically on top of him, and still mostly nude. His eyes were clear and calm. Ren instinctively reached for his mind and found him there, exactly where he should been.

“You’re back,” he said.

Hux nodded. “You can hear me again.”

“You’re very quiet.”

“I hate you a little bit less right now,” Hux said. He pressed his hand to Ren’s cheek. “I think you’ve ruined me, actually, for hating you.”

“I’m sure you’ll persevere,” Ren said. “You have a way about you.”

**Author's Note:**

> During this story Kylo Ren undresses Hux to help him sleep more easily, and gets a little bit caught up in the process mentally. He doesn't actually do anything untoward. And, of course, as with most "sex magic" fics, you could argue there's an element of dubious consent here based purely on the trope at hand. Read safe :)
> 
>  Follow me on [tumblr](http://reserve.tumblr.com)


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